Genesis (Band) / YMMV

Archive Panic:
- With over 40 years worth of material, plus all kinds of bootlegs (many at soundboard quality) and each member's solo material, new fans can find it all a bit daunting. Anthony Philips' solo catalogue alone (counting his program music, soundtracks and Private Parts And Pieces series) can be hard to keep up with, and very rare finds.
- Good luck listening to all of Steve Hackett's discography. He releases new recordings so frequently that chances are by the time you've finished listening to his latest album, he'll have released three more.
Audience-Alienating Era: While massively successful in its time, acting as the band's biggest success up to that point, Invisible Touch is often considered the point where the Broken Base that had been plaguing the band since Peter Gabriel's (or Steve Hackett's depending on who you ask) departure came to bite them in the ass. The far more radio-friendly sound, which was noticeably close to Phil Collins' solo output, resulted in a huge backlash from longtime fans, resulting in We Can't Dance making far less of an impact (despite producing several hit singles), not helped by the dominance of Alternative Rock by the time of its release.
Awesome Music: Oh, so much of it.
Broken Base: And how! To name just a few points of contention:
- The most infamous debate in the fandom is whether Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins was the best frontman. Some fans think the band became terrible after Gabriel left, while others think that was the point where they started getting good. Meanwhile, there are the all-era fans who love both singers and think the other fans need to calm down. And don't even mention Ray Wilson unless you want to open a whole new can of worms; some fans think the band is right to ignore his tenure as lead singer, while others love Calling All Stations and think its omission from the band's 2014 documentary was an outrage.
- When it comes to the fans who think the band lost their way in the '80s, was their last truly great album The Lamb (the last album with Gabriel), or was it Wind and Wuthering (the last album with Steve Hackett)? Some even think the trio era had one or two (or even three or four) good albums before moving straight into pop.
- While popular among critics, Invisible Touch is a huge point of contention among fans, largely because of it being the point where the overlap between Genesis' music and Phil Collins' solo music really became hard to ignore. Some fans consider it a fine enough record with enough edge and prog tinges (particularly on "Domino" and "The Brazilian") to carve a suitable niche in Genesis' discography. Others, however, consider it a cheesy, throwaway pop album without much to distinguish it from the generic nature of Phil Collins' solo records. The only thing both sides seem to agree on is that "Land of Confusion" was a great single.
- Among the fans who consider Invisible Touch to be a bad album, there's a debate on whether We Can't Dance was an improvement (due to some of the more prog-like songs such as "Driving the Last Spike" and "Fading Lights") or just another throwaway pop album (due to the poppier songs such as "I Can't Dance" and "Jesus He Knows Me").
- Even the all-era fans are heavily divided on the quality of certain songs; "Who Dunnit?" (from Abacab) and "Illegal Alien" (from Genesis) tend to get the worst of this. While the former is very often thought of as the band's worst song by a wide margin, fans are divided on whether the song's over-the-top nature makes it So Bad, It's Good or just plain bad. The latter doesn't get quite as much heat, but many fans consider it too awkward to laugh at nowadays, not just for the stereotypes, but also for being a song poking fun at a serious political issue regarding Mexican immigration to America (which is still a hot-button topic decades after the song's release).
- Ironically, given the fights over Collins versus Gabriel among fans, some listeners have reported having trouble even distinguishing Collins' voice from Gabriel's, which could make him almost a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, at least as vocalist. While the two have different accents and vocal timbres, Collins did so many harmony vocals on the Gabriel-era albums that many tracks would effectively be the two of them blended. Furthermore, particularly in the early days of his tenure as lead vocalist, Collins often seemed to be doing his best Gabriel impression, though this would lessen with time.
- The 2007/2008 "remasters", which are actually remixes that are closer to George Lucas Altered Versions that add, change the levels of, or remove numerous instrumental and vocal tracks, and also add EQ to numerous instrument tracks (in particular, Phil Collins' drum tracks have retroactively been given more characteristics of the gated reverb sound he helped invent in The '80s, even on his '70s performances). The biggest point of criticism, though, is the Loudness War mastering on the CDs and SACDs. With most discs averaging at around DR8, they're far from the worst butcheries of all times, but feel a lot louder than a DR8 score might lead one to expect, and they're a far cry from the original Charisma or Atlantic CDs, which were usually DR12 or higher and featured very little to no clipping anywhere. At the same time, some of the original mixes, especially those of Trespass and Nursery Cryme, were rushed or muddy, and the 2007 remixes of those albums are arguably clearer — more than anything, it's the mastering that makes them so contentious. For what it's worth, the 5.1 mixes, which weren't subjected to the same Loudness War stunts, haven't received nearly the same amount of criticism (though to be fair, not as many people have equipment that can even play them, either). Nonetheless, even some fans that like the remixes have decried the removal of the originals from physical circulation and the prioritization of the remixes on streaming services, since the remixes give misleading impressions of how the records originally sounded. In any case, regardless of their thoughts on the 2007 versions, numerous fans still find themselves holding out hope that Genesis will eventually get Steven Wilson to do a new set of remixes.
Critical Dissonance: Much of Genesis's Peter Gabriel-era material was viewed apathetically at best by a majority of critics when it first came out, and much of it is still critically unpopular today (save for Foxtrot and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway). It wasn't until Phil Collins took over the role of frontman and the band underwent their Genre Shift to mainstream pop rock that Genesis would more consistently see praise from the music press. However, with the sole exception of 1969's From Genesis to Revelation, the Gabriel-era material sees significant levels of acclaim from Genesis fans and progressive rock fans in general, with Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in particular being considered two of the greatest prog rock albums ever made. Meanwhile, Genesis' Collins-era output is much more divisive, both due to the nature of the band's genre shift and the general, still-lingering backlash against Collins' popularity in the 1980s.
Crosses the Line Twice: "Harold the Barrel" from Nursery Cryme. A song about a group of people unsuccessfully trying to talk a financially destitute man out of committing suicide would normally be something that requires a high amount of melancholy gravitas, but the jaunty tune and irreverent lyrics allow it to wrap around into Black Comedy status.
Cult Classic: Of ALL things, Calling All Stations, the sole album recorded with Ray Wilson.
- The band's early output to some extent qualifies as this as well. Most people probably have never heard a note of Selling England by the Pound, but by contrast, few Progressive Rock fans haven't listened to the album at least dozens of times from start to finish, and it's one of the most influential albums within the genre, to the point where Genesis is one of the stock reviewer comparisons for progressive rock bands (Pink Floyd, Yes, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull, and Rush probably being the other most common ones). The albums have actually all sold fairly well thanks to consistent back catalogue sales, and it's well known enough through Pop-Cultural Osmosis that jokes about people preferring the Peter Gabriel output are pretty widespread, but the band really qualified as a One-Hit Wonder in many parts of the world (with "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" being their Black Sheep Hit) until the release of Wind & Wuthering, when "Your Own Special Way" became their second major hit. Of course, progressive rock wasn't about radio singles, so judging their success by single sales may be missing the point to some extent. Regardless, Genesis' early output is extremely influential within a relatively niche music genre and is seldom heard by fans who are uninterested in it.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Phil Collins came out from behind his drum kit to take over as lead singer of the band, and then went on to have an astronomical solo career. Mike Rutherford has also found solo success with his band Mike + the Mechanics, and Steve Hackett remains a well-respected figure in the progressive rock community to this day (it helps that, in concerts, he often performs old Genesis songs in addition to his original songs).
Epic Riff: "Dance on a Volcano". So epic, they reprise it during "Los Endos". During live performances, they reprise it again at the end.
- The organ from "The Knife".
- Tony Banks got quite a few of them. The piano opening of "Firth of Fifth" (the main melody of which is reprised on synthesizer later in the song), the organ part that underlies the original version of "The Carpet Crawlers", the piano bit that opens up "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway", and so on. (Most of these are only familiar to Progressive Rock fans, but most prog fans would recognise any of them after just a few notes.)
- From the group's pop days, "Turn It On Again" and "Land of Confusion" have both got to count.
Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Some fans have come up with some rather interesting interpretations for various songs, including the theory that the Eighties pop album Invisible Touch is a concept album about nuclear war (or, according to one SongMeanings user, that all the songs on that album, except for "The Brazilian", are secretly Religion Rant Songs).
Fandom-Enraging Misconception: No one will object when someone says "Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel sound very similar", as that observation is undeniable. It's when you say the two "sound exactly the same" that fans of Phil and Peter respectively will be infuriated, as said fans pride themselves on being able to distinguish their voices and scoff at those who can't.
Fanon Discontinuity: The following people (either individually or in any combination) never left/joined the band: Anthony Phillips, John Mayhew, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Phil Collins, and Ray Wilson. Also, no albums were ever recorded with/without some/any/all of these people.
- Similarly, the band's fanbase is split in half: Those who prefer their Peter Gabriel-led albums and those who like Phil Collins-led records. What albums exist usually depend on which side you're on.
  - See: Broken Base above.
- The majority of old fans were actually quite happy with Phil Collins until the band got poppier to match his solo career. The albums A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering are usually as well-loved as the Gabriel albums, or at least nearly so; some fans even find them to be the peak of the band's output. Even ...And Then There Were Three... and Duke still have reasonably good reputations with many Gabriel-era fans (even if they don't like either album from start to finish, many often still enjoy at least half the songs on each); it's the albums that follow those where the band's output becomes truly contentious.
- Many people, including the band themselves, tend to pretend that the album Calling All Stations never happened. None of the songs from that album were performed on the 2006–07 reunion tour.
- Related to Calling all Stations, Ray Wilson is straight up discredited by some fans and refuse to call him a Genesis member. If they are to bring him up, they'll simply call him a session singer. For these fans, Daryl Stuermer, Chester Thompson, and even Jonathon King are more official members of the band than Ray.
- From Genesis to Revelation, their first album, also qualifies. Not only were Phil and Steve not on it (they weren't on the second album, Trespass, either, but that album is closer to the band's typical style than the first one, and fans (and the band) still consider it a good album), but the band does not own the rights to it, and it's distributed to the few who want to hear it by another company. And the band doesn't even like it much. Thus, it's also subject to Canon Discontinuity, with most official discographies and catalogues making no mention of it. It's also pretty different from even their second album. Several demo pieces from it (missing the shitty excuse of a string section forced on the band by manager Jonathan King) did make it onto the band's first box set.
Fridge Brilliance:
- The Continuity Nods throughout their discography. To name a few examples, "Los Endos" contains elements of "Supper's Ready", "Dance on a Volcano", "Squonk", and "It's Yourself". "Heathaze" is a lyrical Creator-Driven Successor to "Mad Man Moon", and then "Fading Lights" is a Call-Back to a line from "Heathaze", while also containing melodic and harmonic elements of "No Son of Mine", the first song of its own album.
- Basically all of "One for the Vine", especially once you realise that the whole song is a Stable Time Loop. It's really a case of The Ending Changes Everything, since it's not until the very last line that it becomes apparent.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- Not that they weren't big anywhere else, but they were huge in Italy, and pretty much from day one (Genesis's Italian pic sleeve singles are usually unique and very collectable). Similarly, Trespass, released to obscurity in England, was the number one album in Belgium shortly after release, leading to a hasty tour of the continent.
- This phenomenon is practically responsible for the band's first success. In 1972, the band was considered b-grade at best in its native England and unknown in most of the world (save for Italy, as mentionned above), an independant music booking company known as Kosmos offered the band a small tour of the French-Canadian region of Québec. The group had already helped popularise Pink Floyd and Gentle Giant there, launching a province-wide love of Progressive Rock. The two shows sold out, and the unique and extravagant theatrics gave the band a huge commercial boost, and strong word-of-mouth that spread across the North American progsphere. This landed the group a proper US tour, leading to international success, and the rest is history.Needless to say though, the band remains very popular in Quebec, especially under its Peter Gabriel-led incarnation.
Harsher in Hindsight: Considering what has gone on in Phil's love life since ...And Then There Were Three... was released (he and his first wife went through a nasty divorce not long after the album was released, and he later had two more failed marriages, though he has since gotten back together with his third wife), it's a little bit awkward to hear him singing "Follow You, Follow Me", a song where the narrator hopes his loved one will always stay with him.^note
Hilarious in Hindsight: The line "Hypnotized by Batman, Tarzan, still surprised" in "Blood on the Rooftops" became this when, decades later, Phil Collins did the soundtrack to Tarzan as a solo artist.
Ho Yay: A little bit between Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford.
Mainstream Obscurity: Peter Gabriel's tenure as frontman of the band is known well enough that it's been the subject of several jokes, but far more people have heard of his work with Genesis than have actually heard it.
Memetic Loser: Phil Collins, to die-hard Gabriel fans. Which is ironic, since the two were never anything other than friends.
Memetic Mutation: "That was an an unaccompanied bass pedal solo from Mike Rutherford"^Explanation
Memetic Personality Change: Die-hard Collins era fans meanwhile, will characterize Peter Gabriel as a pompous rich kid who bossed and annoyed the rest of the band with his constant theatrics.
Memetic Psychopath: Tony Banks is characterized by some fans as a Control Freak who allegedly caused Steve and Peter to leave the band due to his supposed arrogance. He's also been memed as mixing Steve Hackett low in the mix for Seconds Out.
Misattributed Song:
- Many people, including radio DJs, have attributed Phil Collins-era songs ("Land of Confusion" et al.) solely to him instead of the band, and Collins' solo songs to the band (or "Phil Collins and Genesis") instead of him. It doesn't help that the band experienced the height of their mainstream popularity at the same time as that of Phil's solo career.
- Many Peter Gabriel songs have been mistaken for Phil Collins songs and vice-versa. What's odd is that this often happens with their '80s songs despite the two diverging in vocal styles by that point in their careers.
Mis-blamed: A lot of people think Phil dragged Mike and Tony kicking and screaming into the pop-rock '80s. Word of God (Tony) says that the near-opposite is true: Mike was equally enthusiastic about the group's pop-rock direction, and Tony was primarily responsible for the remaining prog rock influence on the band's later material. And even Tony's written his share of pop songs, so it's not as if the band wouldn't have had any pop material without Phil or Mike. Mike in particular went on to start Mike + the Mechanics, a band whose music sounds poppier than '80s Genesis, Solo Phil, and Solo Peter combined.
- Tony Banks also gets a hefty share of the blame for allegedly causing two members of its classic lineup, Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett, to leave the group due to Creative Differences - even though both have confirmed that the level of creative freedom they wanted would have been impossible in any kind of band structure. The other factors influencing each member's departure are equally impossible to blame on Banks alone: Gabriel left due to family matters, and Hackett due to the in-group fighting over individual songwriting credits mentioned above. Banks' scapegoating has gone as far as claims that he ordered the engineers on Seconds Out to mix Hackett's guitar all the way to the back (something Tony once said as a joke, and Steve denies ever really happened).
- "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", "The Silent Sun", "Happy the Man", "Twilight Alehouse", and "Counting Out Time" were earlier attempts at commercial singles, yet were still too quirky and progressive-sounding for commercial success. They weren't really opposed to the idea of radio success, just unlucky with their attempts to get a hit single.
- Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel have Jossed the accusations that since Phil had some reservations with some of Peter's more elaborate theatrics (and how they threatened to overshadow the music) by The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway^note, he tried to edge Peter out of the group and take over. Phil not only was quite comfortable as drummer and background vocalist, and sad to see Peter leave (they remain friends to this day; Gabriel was even one of the background singers in Collins' "Take Me Home"), but even after having recorded A Trick of the Tail, was still planning to hire a formal lead vocalist to go on the road. Collins was reluctant to take on the vocalist/front-man role, only doing so as the band could find no proper replacement for Peter. Collins had even at first, with no disrespect to Peter, suggested that the band could continue on as an instrumental group.
- Ray Wilson gets so much flak for Calling All Stations, even though Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks were the ones who actually wrote most of the album. In the end, Ray was only doing what he was asked to. Some fans seem to have at least warmed up to him in recent years though.
Older Than They Think: Hackett made heavy use of the "tapping" and "sweep picking" techniques (often thought to be invented by 1980s heavy metal guitarists) in the early-to-mid '70s. In particular, the solo section in "The Musical Box" will seem instantly familiar to fans of Iron Maiden - having the galloping rhythm and twin guitar solo sound associated with the band (specifically, that of "Killers" and "The Trooper"). Steve Harris has noted Genesis as a strong influence on Maiden, although a lot of fans and journalists don't realise it (for example, often thinking the twin guitar sound comes from Thin Lizzy, who, though also an influence on Maiden, adopted the twin guitar sound several years after Genesis).
- Prior to becoming lead vocalist of the band, Phil Collins took lead vocals on "For Absent Friends" and "More Fool Me" as well as numerous prominent harmony vocals on songs (forming a Vocal Tag Team in "Harlequin" and "The Carpet Crawlers" for example). He also significantly took lead vocals on a number of Anthony Phillips solo tracks in the early 70s, which also feature Mike Rutherford - and sound remarkably like the softer moments of the A Trick Of The Tail/Wind And Wuthering period. He shouldn't be regarded as a replacement for Peter Gabriel so much as the band's secondary vocalist who simply became the primary one. Whilst it is true that the band's musical style changed over time, they had had pop leanings in the Gabriel era (with the likes of "Happy The Man", "I Know What I Like" and "Counting Out Time" being prime examples), and likely would have anyway.
Remade and Improved: "The Carpet Crawlers" was a long established classic in the band's oeuvre, so when the classic lineup regrouped to rerecord in 1999, many groaned and wondered what the point was. However, when they heard it, a lot of people changed their minds. The rerecording takes the original melody and improves the dramatic qualities of the song. In the original, the melody line is mostly driven by an arpeggiated organ, the drums are not really propulsive, and Peter Gabriel's voice couldn't quite handle the low notes. In the rerecording, all these issues are addressed, and while the song may seem a bit sleek, it works.
Replacement Scrappy:
- Phil Collins was initially seen as this when he replaced Peter Gabriel (and to a Vocal Minority, he still is one). Ray Wilson was seen as this by many fans when he replaced Collins.
- The Definitive Edition Remasters from 1994 aren't as widely liked as the more beloved original Charisma and Atlantic/Atco CDs (and repressings thereof), due to a perceived over-reliance on EQ and noise reduction. They are, however, considered an improvement over some of the Atco discs.
- The 2007 remixes/remasters are widely considered this to the Charisma/Atlantic/Atco CDs and even the Definitive Edition remasters, due to their reliance on Loudness War techniques compared to their more audiophile-friendly predecessors. The fact that the 2007 remasters more heavily squish the prog-era albums — which require more headroom to sound better, not less — only worsens matters. (And if anything, the 1976-1982 set is even more compressed than the 1970-1975 set.) It says something that even the 2007 remixes' defenders rarely try to defend the SACD/CD mastering, while the 5.1 mixes, which were mostly free from similar Loudness War shenanigans, have largely escaped criticism.
- There are fans who'll swear by the LPs over any CD release, even though the band's habit of pressing more than twenty-five minutes on an LP side (which they did on almost every record from Foxtrot through Duke; extending an LP side much beyond about twenty-three minutes requires reducing the space between grooves on the record, which in turn requires reducing the average volume, lowering the bass, and increasing the noise floor) meant the LPs themselves had their own issues.
Sophomore Slump: Averted, if not Inverted with Trespass, almost universally considered a huge improvement over From Genesis to Revelation. The band had kept writing songs during their early tours and cherry-picked the numbers that went over especially well for the album.
Special Effect Failure: In a documentary, Collins said The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway had at least one in every show they did. For example, one scene required two explosions onstage revealing Gabriel and a mannequin dressed as Gabriel to represent Rael's dual personality. The pyrotechnic expert was a bit overzealous on the explosives, resulting in a charred mannequin.
Spiritual Successor: Several candidates have popped up over the years, most of them in regards to the Gabriel era:
- The Flaming Lips could be one to the Gabriel era of the band with their stage theatrics.
- Marillion are well-known for the amount of comparisons they garner to Gabriel-era Genesis, on account of their similar musical and performance styles. With even their somewhat poppier songs evoking an Alternate Universe where Peter stayed Genesis but still went pop. These comparisons were so common that when lead singer Fish left the band and embarked on his own solo career a-la Gabriel, he was stuck with the task of proving to everyone that he wasn't just a clone of Genesis' first frontman.
- Talking Heads have also received a number of comparisons to Gabriel-era Genesis, on account of their artsier music style compared to most Post-Punk bands as well as frontman David Byrne sharing Gabriel's love of theatrical live performances in thematic costumes (most notably in Talking Heads' concert film Stop Making Sense). Byrne also garners comparisons to Gabriel for his social consciousness and affinity for experimental World Music.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Several things throughout the band's career can provoke this reaction; most obviously, many older fans of Genesis feel this way about the band's output during the 1980s.
- "Firth of Daryl"^note
- There are several fans who do not like the Collins-era band trying to cover Gabriel-era material, believing that Phil cannot pull of Peter's theatrics and stage presence and should stick to his own material. On the other hand, Gabriel actually praised Collins' renditions of his songs, claiming that Collins "sang them better" than he did. ^Although...He did have mixed feelings about Collins' rendition of "Supper's Ready", but that was mainly because the song was so personal to him; he compared it to seeing someone trying on your old clothes and being unsure if they'll fit. Several of these changes include:
  - Phil's adding a narmy "down, down, down" to the chorus of the Title Track to "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway".
  - Cutting out the intro to "The Carpet Crawlers"
  - Turning several songs into instrumentals, such as "Firth of Fifth" and "Watcher of the Skies", and/or shortening them and throwing them into medleys.
- Can also, oddly enough, refer to the band's choice of equipment. Hardcore fans blame the Korg Wavestation for Tony Banks' muddy, generic sound in the 1990s, and many (and occasionally even bandmembers) will point out that quite a few of the older songs don't sound particularly well on anything but the old, worn-out, temperamental machines they were recorded on ^note. And let's not get into Phil Collins and drum machines unless you want to open another can of worms.
Took the Bad Film Seriously: Ray Wilson, whose work with Genesis on the album ...Calling All Stations... was outright panned, has seemed to parlay his brief stint into a substantial career. To this day, he still performs songs from Calling All Stations live and recently appeared as a guest singer at Steve Hackett's 2013 Genesis Revisited II show at the Royal Albert Hall. Currently more than half his live set list consists of Genesis covers, including several songs originally recorded long before he joined the band.
- A lot of reviewers didn't consider Wilson's vocals the problem with Calling All Stations; they just didn't care for the songs. For whatever it's worth, the B-sides that featured him singing remakes of older Genesis material (found on various releases of "Shipwrecked" and "Not About Us") were pretty well-regarded. Meanwhile, Banks and Rutherford have since admitted that neither of them really was that enthusiastic about making another album, and each just assumed the other was.
Tough Act to Follow: What happened after The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, until the band switched genres. (There are fans that prefer A Trick of the Tail and/or Wind & Wuthering, though.)
- Also, Ray Wilson following Phil Collins as lead singer.
- While averting this when succeeding Gabriel as the lead singer, Collins following him into a solo career would count as well. The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson once introduced him as "The man who made a career out of being not as good as Peter Gabriel" for this reason.
- In a certain sense, the rhythm section of Daryl Stuermer (guitar, bass) and Chester Thompson (drums) might get compared and contrasted to the musicians whose contributions they have to recreate in live performance. This might especially be the case for Daryl's recreations of Steve Hackett's guitar work, as unlike Mike Rutherford or Phil Collins, Hackett's physical presence onstage is missing from the trio-era lineup.
- The shadow of "Supper's Ready" lead to the band never releasing a 20+ minute long suite ever again, with two different planned attempts being split into the first and last two songs on Selling England by the Pound and scattered throughout the track listing of Duke to avoid unfavorable comparisons to their previous side-length epic.
Values Dissonance: "Illegal Alien", which lightheartedly pokes fun at illegal immigration in the United States, is very obviously a song that could only have been made before the subject matter became a hot-button issue during the 1990s. This is even truer for the music video, which features the band members acting out Mexican stereotypes to the point where it comes off nowadays as highly racist. For these reasons, the band considers the song and video a huge Old Shame.
Vindicated by History: The band's progressive rock output, to some extent. Some of the band's '70s albums were critically divisive at the time they were released, and they weren't huge sellers compared to either the band's later work or the works of some of their contemporaries (e.g., Pink Floyd, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, etc.). However, the critical stature of Genesis' early output has improved overall (for instance, the popular music review website Allmusic gives perfect five-star ratings to Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), and they've remained consistent sellers, thanks in part to their continued influence on new generations of progressive rock and metal musicians; for example, Selling England and Lamb have both received Gold certifications in both the United States (at least 500,000 copies shipped) and the United Kingdom (at least 100,000 copies shipped) as well as some other countries. Additionally, the band's prog rock output probably played a fairly large part in getting them inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as critical opinions of the band's '80s output were not exactly at a high point in 2010.
- Speaking of which, the band's '80s output and Phil Collins' solo career may have both experienced this in a strange way as well. They sold millions of records, and some of the early albums received good reviews at the time, but Genesis' '80s material and Collins' solo career were incomprehensibly unhip for decades. Perhaps people just became sick of them due to radio oversaturation, but in any case, neither of them were critically well regarded for quite some time (with possible exceptions for "Turn It On Again", "Land of Confusion", "In the Air Tonight", and perhaps a few other scattered tracks here and there that have always been regarded as classics). It's easier to find people who'll admit to liking Collins' solo career and Genesis' '80s material as a whole in the 2020s, though. Their clear lingering influence over modern music (in particular, Genesis and Collins' early use of drum machines and Collins helping to invent gated reverb on Peter Gabriel's "Intruder" cast a major shadow over subsequent drum production in two very different ways) has gone a long way to helping their reputation recover. The aforementioned Allmusic now gives five-star ratings to Collins' solo albums Face Value (The One With… "In the Air Tonight" on it) and No Jacket Required.
Vocal Minority: The Collins-led pop era is treated as an Audience-Alienating Era by fans of the Gabriel-led prog era, yet their pop-era albums did much better commercially than their prog-era albums. In the United States, most Collins-era albums went platinum, yet only the last two Gabriel-era albums went gold (several years after Gabriel left the band).

YMMV / Genesis (Band)

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